


The Atheist Christmas Carol

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-22
Updated: 2006-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:38:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is beer drinking, carol singing, and references to nun debauching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Atheist Christmas Carol

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to luzdeestrellas for her tireless enthusiasm, and to sullensiren for betaing. Let's pretend [**the timeline**](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/1256946.html?thread=22845426#t22845426) actually makes sense.

It's easy to lose track of time on the road--hours, days, weeks pass with nothing to mark them but dust and blacktop, the slow healing of whatever injuries they've picked up, and the gradual easing of the ache in their bones from everything they've lost along the way.

November signals fire and death on the Winchester calendar, a page to be ripped out, avoided, ignored for as long as possible, until the bright glory of the leaves fades to the monochrome gray of approaching winter, and December is on the horizon. The weeks melt into each other, and they don't even remember Thanksgiving until it's another boring Thursday in the rearview mirror, the only reminder of the holiday the dry turkey on special at the truck-stop Dean chooses somewhere on the road in Arkansas, eyes shadowed with exhaustion, hands white-knuckled on the wheel.

And then November's gone, in a flurry of ghosts and angry words, miles logged and people rescued, and Sam wonders how much more Dean can take. Wonders if the next job will be the one that breaks Dean for good. Wonders if he'll be able to put him back together if it does. Wonders how much difference any of what they do really makes in the end.

He shakes himself out of his dark mood, though, and tries to keep himself together. He's the only one who can help Dean, and right now, Dean is the only thing that matters.

Dean's in the shower, and he's in a pretty good mood, if his yowling rendition (including the guitar solo) of "You Shook Me All Night Long" is any indication. Sam laughs for the first time in what feels like forever, flops onto the bed, and turns on the television to drown out his brother's singing.

He's rewarded with Jimmy Durante singing "Frosty the Snowman" instead. He sits up slowly, the old twin sirens of envy and desire flaring up in a way they haven't since he'd left for Stanford, since he took his shot at normal and found it wasn't the safe haven he'd expected it to be.

He might not be able to give Dean normal--not that Dean would want it, and Sam finally understands some of Dean's scorn for the concept, might even share in it a bit, after some of the things they've seen, the human evils somehow worse than the supernatural ones, if only because people are supposed to be capable of better--but he can give Dean something he wants, something he _needs_. He can prove that he's been paying attention, at least, even with all the other shit that's gone down. He just hopes he isn't too late.

He snaps open his laptop, and starts searching.

***

It's easier than he expects to get Dean to go along. Not that he tells Dean what he's actually planning, but Dean seems content this once to let him pick their destination, to curl up against the passenger-side door and sleep while Sam drives. It's been a rough few weeks, and the last job they'd done had involved a kelpie who'd been drowning children. They'd saved the most recent victim--a ten-year-old girl who'd just hit that horse-crazy stage some girls go through--but they hadn't been in time to save the three before. Dean always takes the jobs involving kids the hardest, something Sam hadn't noticed until this past year.

Dean's still asleep when Sam pulls up to the office to register. The lodge is nicer than any place they've ever stayed, and Sam feels a twinge of regret as he signs in with a false name and false credit card.

Dean wakes when Sam parks in front of their cabin; he works his mouth soundlessly, tasting the air with the tip of his tongue, as if that can tell him where they are. Sam wouldn't be surprised if Dean could do that--he never seems disoriented when he wakes up, yet another skill he picked up easily from Dad that Sam has never been able to master--but they've never been here before, so he's pretty sure Dean won't guess. At least, not until he takes a good look around.

They get out of the car, and the air is on the chilly side of crisp, dry as a bone, and full of dust and the scent of exhaust. The sun is setting; it looks like something out of a movie, sky painted orange and pink and pale blue darkening to indigo as night coats the world like a blanket. The canyon is huge, and reflects back red and gold and black like nothing Sam's ever seen before.

Dean looks around, and Sam can see the shock on his face as he realizes where they are.

"Dude," he says in an awed whisper. He clears his throat and tries again, but again, only comes up with, "Dude."

Sam knows how he feels.

***

Sam unlocks the door to the cabin, gets their stuff inside, does all the things Dean usually does when they settle in for a couple of days, while Dean stands and stares, his face so open and awed he looks like a kid. Sam doesn't ever remember seeing him look that way, and it makes him want to cry.

He grabs the cooler from the backseat and a blanket from the trunk, which he spreads out on the hood of the car.

The last of the sunlight is gone now, night falling hard and the temperature dropping fast, but the air is clean and the stars are sharp and cold overhead, brilliant and infinite in the darkness, a sight that never stops being awesome in the original sense of the word. Sam looks east, the way he always did as a kid, literal to a fault, searching for that Christmas star, even though he doesn't believe, really, and he knows it was probably a comet, anyway.

He hops up onto the car and sets the cooler down on his left.

"Dean?"

"Dude." Dean's still stuck on that one syllable, and it makes Sam laugh, long and hard. Finally, as he's wiping his eyes, belly aching in the best possible way, Dean says, "What?" with as much indignation as he can muster.

Sam nods at the cooler. "Beer."

"Yeah. Okay." Dean slides up onto the car beside him, and even though they're both shivering, they pop open two bottles of beer, clink them together, and drink.

***

Sam's not sure how much time has passed, but there are five empty beer bottles on the ground around the Impala that he's going to have to clean up when they're done, and he's on his third, and somehow, it's not as cold as he'd thought it was.

Dean is staring at the stars, chin tipped up, face half in shadow, profile like something off a Greek urn.

"Merry Christmas," Sam says.

Dean turns his head, startled. "Fuck. I didn't--I'm sorry, Sammy. I didn't even think of it."

Sam smiles. "S'okay. I didn't expect--" He shakes his head. "We never did much for Christmas, did we?"

"We did the best we could," Dean starts, suddenly on the defensive, and Sam puts a hand on his arm.

"I wasn't--it wasn't a criticism. I just meant--I didn't expect you to remember. You always did when we were kids, though. When it was important." He laughs. "You used to sing Christmas songs and get the words all wrong."

"Oh, I knew the words, Sammy. I just liked making up my own. They were funnier."

"'Jingle bells, Batman smells' is neither original nor funny, Dean." Though Sam can feel himself starting to laugh again. Every year, Dean had sung that stupid version of the song constantly, from Halloween through New Year's, driving both Sam and their father crazy.

"You just don't appreciate the classics."

"I don't think you know any of the classics."

"Hmph." Dean takes a sip of his beer and is silent for so long that Sam thinks maybe he's fallen asleep. And then he starts singing, his warm tenor as familiar to Sam as breathing from long hours spent listening to him sing along with the radio in the car. "_Adeste fideles, Laeti triumphantes; Venite, venite in Bethlehem._"

Sam stares at him for a long, incredulous moment, and then joins in, his voice rusty and off-key. "_Natum videte, Regem Angelorum: Venite adoremus, venite adoremus, venite adoremus Dominum!_"

"Jesus, Sam, you sound like a herd of dying cows."

"Shut up."

"I'm just saying--"

"It's Christmas, man."

"Fine. Whatever. But let it be noted that I got all the Winchester singing talent."

"What little there is of it."

"It's not how much you've got, Sammy, it's what you do with it."

Sam snorts beer out his nose, which _hurts_. He smacks Dean's shoulder in retaliation and ignores Dean's affronted, "Hey!" in response.

"You of all people should know. Do chicks really fall for that old line?" He snickers. "Then again, you don't exactly go for the smart girls, do you?"

Dean waves his hand dismissively. "You're still jealous that Sister Claire wanted me to be the soloist in her little choir."

"You only joined because you thought it'd get you laid."

"And I was right, too." Dean sounds irritatingly smug.

Sam shakes his head. "No way. All the women in that choir were either fifteen or fifty."

"Let's just say that Sister Claire was not as chaste as you might have thought."

Sam shoves Dean so hard he almost goes sprawling off the car. "No fucking way in hell!"

Dean grabs at Sam to regain his balance, laughing. "Oh hell, yeah. The only thing angelic about Sister Claire was her voice. Well, and her legs, which you never got to see, but believe me, they were enough to make even me want to believe in God."

"How--" Sam shakes his head again. "I don't even want to know. You would find the only slutty nun on the planet."

"Pastor Jim said the experience would be educational." Dean licks his lips and grins. "He didn't know how right he was." He looks away for a moment, and when he looks back his face is grave. He raises his bottle. "To Pastor Jim." They both drink, solemn. "And to Caleb." Another drink.

Sam takes a deep breath, and now he can feel the cold night air in his lungs. "To Mom."

"To Mom," Dean echoes, closing his eyes and drinking. It's so quiet now, Sam can hear him breathing, tries to match his own breathing to it, the way they did when they were kids, and Dean used to distract him from being scared while Dad was away by talking and singing through the night.

"To Jess," Dean says quietly, opening his eyes and looking at Sam, holding his gaze.

Sam forces himself to breathe past the lingering ache in his chest. His voice barely breaks when he says, "To Jess." He drinks slowly, remembering the scent of her hair, the soft feel of her skin beneath his fingers, all of it fading with time and distance.

When he has control of his voice again, he says, "To Dad."

Dean nods once, jaw set and eyes bright in the darkness, and no doubt he'd blame it on the dust or the chill in the air if Sam said something, but Sam doesn't, because his eyes are stinging now, too. They drink, and the silence stretches between them, unbearably lonely under the great dome of the stars above and the canyon yawning in the darkness beyond.

"To kicking the demon's ass," Dean finally says, and sounds like he means it, sounds more like himself than he has in weeks, "and living to tell the tale."

"I'll drink to that," Sam answers, and drains his bottle dry.

***

Sam's not sure what time they stumble into the room. He strips and collapses into bed without brushing his teeth, barely awake for the glass of water and the Advil Dean hands him.

In the morning, he's not nearly as hungover as he expects to be, which is good, because they spend the day hiking. Neither of them is really dressed for it, and Dean alienates the guide about ten minutes into the hike with his running commentary--Sam is too busy trying not to laugh to do much soothing of the guy's ruffled feathers--but they have fun anyway. It's good to see Dean interested in something again, see him be alert and intelligent about something other than hunting for the first time in what feels like forever. Sam would never have guessed Dean would be that interested in geology or ecology, but he pays attention to the guide, even though he thinks the guy's a dick, because the guide knows what he's talking about.

Dean's not the only one learning things today.

They're both tired when they get back to the cabin, but it's the good kind of tired, muscles sore and heads clear, the kind of tired that can be cured with a hot shower, a forty minute nap, and a good dinner at the lodge dining room, steak and mashed potatoes, and cheesecake for dessert.

After dinner, the other guests gather around the fire to drink eggnog and sing carols. They don't stay for that part. Sam can only imagine the trouble Dean could get them into, and the owner's teenage daughters are staring at them with a gleam in their heavily mascara'd eyes that makes Sam's blood run cold. He laughs at Dean's good-natured teasing about attracting jailbait, and it feels good.

It's quite possibly the best Christmas they've had together since Sam was twelve, but he doesn't say anything. Neither does Dean. They don't want to jinx it.

***

They leave in the morning, the sun shining brightly overhead. Sam wishes they could have stayed longer, because one day off is not enough, but this place is expensive, about a hundred steps up from their usual cheap motel, and he's not sure when the credit card will get tagged as fraudulent. He wants to be as far away as possible when that happens.

"Boxing Day would be a lot cooler if there was less shopping and more boxing," Dean says, slipping into the driver's seat and flashing a grin that goes all the way to his eyes. "You know, that'd be an awesome reality show."

"What?"

"All those chicks in line at Macy's beating the crap out of each other as they try to return all the ugly shit they got for Christmas."

Sam laughs reluctantly and shakes his head. "Whatever, man."

"You know I'm right."

Sam sighs and leans his head against the cool glass of the passenger-side window. He closes his eyes and hopes Dean takes the hint.

As they pull out of the parking lot, he can hear Dean fiddling with the radio, and braces himself for the sonic assault of Metallica, or possibly AC/DC, since Dean's in a good mood. It will almost be welcome after the endless round of Christmas carols they've been subjected to since they arrived, though he'll never tell Dean that.

But when the fiddling stops, Snow Patrol's "Run" is playing.

Sam opens his eyes and turns slowly to look at Dean, who shrugs. "It's the only station I can tune in," he says.

Sam takes the gift he's being offered with a smile.

end

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Vienna Teng.


End file.
